 Hey everyone Adam Shaw here from Bravura Media Company. Today we've got another vintage map for you guys. We've got a bird's-eye perspective map of Ottawa, Canada that was originally produced in 1895. As you can see it is a bird's-eye perspective map in that we get to see building architecture, changes in landscape, we get to see waterways, we get to see ships, we get to see vegetation, we get to see the city of Ottawa in a three-dimensional perspective. We're gonna zoom in, kind of explore and examine this vintage map, but before we do let's kind of go over a historical background of Ottawa, Canada. With the draining of the Champlain Sea around 10,000 years ago the Ottawa Valley became habitable. The area was used for wild edible, harvesting, hunting, fishing, trade, travel, and camps for over 6,500 years by local populations. The area has three major rivers that meet making it an important trade and travel area for pretty much thousands of years. The Algonquians called the Ottawa River Kitchi-Sibi or Kitch-Sipi meaning Great River or Grand River. At TN Brawl the first European to travel up the Ottawa River passed by Ottawa in 1610 on his way to the Great Lakes. Three years later Samuel de Champlain wrote about the waterfalls of the area and about his encounters with the Algonquians who had been using the Ottawa River for centuries. Philomin Wright, a New Englander, created the first settlement in the area on March 7th 1800 on the north side of the river across from Ottawa and Hull. He, with five other families and 25 laborers, set about to create an agricultural community called Wrightsville. Wright pioneered the Ottawa Valley timber trade, soon to be the area's most significant economic activity, by transporting timber by river from the Ottawa Valley to Quebec City. Bytown, Ottawa's original name was founded as a community in 1826 when hundreds of land speculators were attracted to the south side of the river when news spread that British authorities were immediately constructing the northerly end of the redo canal military project at that location. A year after the accumulation of this community of Bytown the settlement would be named after the British military engineer Colonel John By, who was responsible for the entire redo waterway construction project. Thus we have Bytown as the prequel to what we know as Ottawa. The military purpose of the canal, the redo canal, was to provide a secure route between Montreal and Kingston on Lake Ontario, bypassing the stretch of the St. Lawrence River bordering the state of New York that had left the British forces easily exposed to American fire during the war of 1812. Colonel John By set up military barracks on the site of today's Parliament Hill. He also laid out the streets of the town and created two distinct neighborhoods named Upper Town, West of the canal, and Lower Town, East of the canal. Bytown's population grew to a thousand as the redo canal was being completed in 1832. When 1855 rolled around Bytown was renamed what we know today as Ottawa and incorporated as a city. On New Year's Eve 1857 Queen Victoria as a symbolic and political gesture was presented with the responsibility of selecting a location for the permanent capital of the province of Canada. In reality though Prime Minister John McDonald had been assigned this selection process to the executive branch of the government. The quote-unquote Queen's Choice, so the Queen wasn't really choosing, it was other people but she was doing it symbolically, turned out to be a small frontier town of Ottawa for two main reasons. First Ottawa's isolated location was a backcountry area surrounded by dense forest far from the Canadian US border and situated on a cliff face that made it more defensible from attack. Second Ottawa was located approximately midway between Ontario and Kingston and Montreal and Quebec City. Additionally despite Ottawa's regional isolation it had it had seasonal water transportation access to Montreal over the Ottawa River and the King's and to Kingston via the redo waterway. By 1854 it also had a modern all season railway that carried passengers lumber and supplies. Also this small size of the town at the time made many believe that it would be less prone to politically motivated mobs as had happened in previous Canadian capitals. In this area the in this era the 1850s timeframe large sawmills began to be erected by entrepreneurs known as lumber barons for which these mills were recognized as from some as the largest in the world. The original Parliament buildings which included the centra the centra east and west blocks were constructed right around between the 1859 and 1865 range. Public transportation began in 1870 with a horse car system overtaken eventually in the 1890s by a vast electric streetcar system. By 1885 Ottawa was the only city in Canada whose downtown streetlights were powered entirely by electricity. So that kind of gives you a background history and timeline to the evolution of Ottawa. Let's dive right in kind of explore and examine this map this is an 1895 map so we earlier just said that in 1885 Ottawa was the only city in Canada whose downtown was powered by streetlights so we're probably gonna be able to see this see some of those aspects on this map maybe we will maybe we won't I would think I haven't explored this map fully but certainly we've got fence lines if we zoom in we don't have any labeled locations unfortunately we can certainly see street names oh and remember we talked about the streetcars public transportation began in 1870 with a horse car and then it was overtaken in 1890s by a vast electric streetcar okay there's our streetcar this is an 1895 map so that just kind of solidifies that kind of proof certainly we still see horse cars drawn throughout this map and then we've got this waterway this water canal right here we talked about the the redo water canal well here you go eat your heart out the map is a little bit disjointed because it was folded but we you know we've done the best we could to try to put it back together as you can see we can obviously see this is this is a state house right here right next to the canal it looks like we've got a flag at the top we can see the waterway which looks quite nice it's illustrated we can see boats look at the logs remember we talked about how important the canal was in this area was for transporting logs the ships pulling logs we also talked about the railway the railway was very important in terms of transporting people and goods as well you see the railway off in the distance I really wish more locations were labeled remember we talked about the streetcar there's another streetcar right there labeled look at that we've got someone who wrote Drant Brothers that's what it looks like on the top of that building interesting we can see a smokestack off on Florence Street off in the distance that probably is either a mill or some kind some sort of manufacturing very close to a streetcar rail line we can see the streetcar rail line kind of extend out in the city we can see where these lines were spark Street man I really wish they had locations labeled because I mean they're they're certainly they're well illustrated on here but we don't get that that joy of here's a real depot you see a real depot we can see goods being transferred down here this is on looks like Catherine Street look at that that looks like a stack of timber right by a rail line right there very interesting and that is that's by Catherine Street as well that looks like there was a depot right around there so I do videos for metal detectors and people who do metal detecting and I kind of look up old maps and locations we get also this is kind of cool on this map we get kind of a street view of these different buildings and remember we talked about the streetcars well there there's one right there powerhouse Ottawa Electric Street Railway pretty cool we get that perspective okay we've got okay wow we get address locations spark Street let's look at that brother let's there's gotta be Grant Brothers okay okay okay now I'm getting excited have to calm down okay these Grant Brothers right here that's the building illustrated right there and if we pull back that's what it looked like on the street that's how it's illustrated grant it's a hardware store hardware merchants that is just plain out cool that we're able to do that see man these the one thing these birds eye perspective maps should have done numbered locations street view like this that's interesting we get to see that let's see there's a lot of Stroud's tea stores that's interesting spark Street a lot a lot's on spark Street there's another one 260 spark Ottawa remember we saw that factory off the distance what is that Florence do we have a Florence Street that's another spark Street busy another one they're all a lot of these are on yeah wow okay yeah corner a spark Street no Connor Queen Street here's Queen Street Alberta Alberta Street I don't see a Florence amazingly oh there's a redo I'm guessing that's right by the canal palace furniture Wellington I saw Wellington Wellington's right here what is this let's take a look at Wellington okay Stonehouse Chamberlain and carriages we can see it looks like a church off in the background let's see if we can find this right by the rail car the rail car would be in front so oh wow what is that we got a labeled location right there DRME that's okay so we this is spark Street on the other side of Wellington we're gonna look up all the other ones I'm sure that is a labeled location very hard to read that out but Wellington there's a furniture store somewhere on Wellington here's redo I was wrong about redo redo streets down to the south of the canal somewhat on Wellington Street where are so we've got it looks like manufacturers I don't know if the furniture store it's somewhere on the start we saw a rail car my guess is since we saw a rail car in that photo in that kind of street view anywhere from Bank Street going up to here that furniture would exist yeah it's just a little bit rough I'm sorry the carriage it's not a furniture store it's carriage they got a smokestack yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah okay they got a smokestack my guess is right here guys it's right here they got a smokestack right here looks like there's a church off in the background looks like there's a waterway off behind it let's see yeah yeah yeah yeah here's the waterway yep so that was a carriage house and you look off in the distance sorry took a little bit of time but that that's a carriage house and we can see the railways right there and that is right at the end of Spark Street right here and what is this I can't read that's Nate what is that concession is that concession or something such a street at right over here it's by Bay Street if you go to if you go Bay Street and you go a little bit north and you're on Wellington that is a carriage manufacturer pretty cool so I mean it's you have to kind of decipher when you're looking at these old maps you got to kind of use point of interest and to kind of figure out what these buildings are and where they are reduced street I've got 103 and 105 Wellington which one was this this is a 355 so that's way up 105 that's a wholesale retail workman company wholesale retail looks like there were two shops Alexander Hardware workman and okay Alexander Hardware that looks like lower Wellington probably I would say around here considering 300 was the carriage house up there and it didn't have a railway in front so probably one of these buildings and unfortunately it's not really labeled that well so yeah it's just hard deciphering through these maps but certainly we get we get some really cool information on this map by just looking at the the building architecture here's a mill where where is this mill Bank Street we saw Bank Street are you right here Bank Street and it looks like where this mill oh dude is this the mill Mortimer Bank Street novelty word wow my goodness J O'Connor there's a couple O'Connor mills so let's look on Bank Street okay O'Connor Street see O'Connor a lot okay there's a smokestack right there smokestack right there my guess that's I'm gonna make a guess where that mill is my guess is they would put that mill right by the railway that's it right there right by Catherine Street let's look do we get a number 289 we can see sort of in the background maybe what is this okay now we're lumber this looks like a lumberyard dress lumber this looks like a street rail car looks like lumber yet lumber stacks right off the side if we see that right there my best guess I mean right there considering they had kind of a lumberyard it's got to be in the this vicinity the lumberyard is too prevalent and if you look at the rest of Bank Street I mean there's just you don't see any lumberyards you don't see any you follow Bank Street all the way down that's the only location so that this is how you investigate these old maps you got to be a kind of a detective when you when you look at them and I know it's dragged on but it's really hard to decipher when they don't label and it's you got to look for a little clues so I hope you've enjoyed this video I hope you learned something about Ottawa and investigating this map feel free to subscribe to our YouTube channel we do videos like these all the time where we investigate old maps we talk about the history of various cities cities throughout Canada cities that the United States the world we talk about historical wars we really go we do biographies we go into everything so if you like history and you like maps definitely subscribe to our YouTube channel leave a comment below if you have any questions about this map or the history of Ottawa like this video share this video and I will see you guys soon okay take care all right bye